Additional winter testing in 2014?
Marked by the return of turbo engines, the 2014 season will be a very studious one, according to Rob White, a prominent member of Renault Sport F1, who advocates for the implementation of an additional testing session at the beginning of the season, due to the lack of tests in 2013, within a timeframe considered too short for manufacturers and teams.
The 2014 Formula 1 season will mark a regulatory renewal, with the biggest change being the introduction of turbo V6 engines in place of the current naturally aspirated V8s. A drastic change that inevitably raises uncertainties. Rob White, Deputy Managing Director of Renault Sport F1, has shown support for the implementation of additional testing ahead of the 2014 season to prepare engine manufacturers and teams for this change.
« There is something that resembles a proposal that has matured for there to be an additional private testing session which we are completely in favor of. I don’t know what the format will be, nor where it will take place, but we are assuming there will be an additional session for all teams and it is not optional because everyone will want and need it. » This additional testing session would take place in 2014 and would be in addition to the usual three winter testing sessions.
Questioned about the opportunity to conduct these tests earlier, particularly at the end of the 2013 season, Rob White highlights the tight schedule of engine manufacturers: « It’s a debate that has more or less expired because the timing currently means that the cars will run for the first time during the new season (in 2014). […] If you conduct tests in October, you would then have to build the engines in September. The problem is that the parts needed to build these engines would have to be manufactured three months prior, and because you want them to be race-calibrated parts, you need to have decided exactly by May what their specifications will be. With the current project timing, it’s not possible to put a representative engine in the car for October. »
Regretting the impossibility of starting the tests earlier, he explains, however, that in the current state of affairs, the engine manufacturers are not ready and would have even wanted to go further: « We would have liked to accumulate more experience on the test benches for these parts before going on track, so they should have been made now or very quickly. We are still designing parts, and some of them are not yet manufactured. » This absence of running in 2013 presents, for R. White, a potential risk, even if the presence of at least four teams equipped with a Renault engine (Red Bull, Lotus, Williams, and Caterham) significantly improves the development pace.
The deputy managing director of Renault Sport F1 adds: Even if it was reasonable to assume that there would be no significant work to be done on the engine or the power unit, which will probably not be the case, all teams should work hard on characterization and confirmation of design assumptions or on data collection to modify them. Quite a program, and Rob White concludes: It will be a very intense 2014 pre-season. Hard not to believe it.
